new generation

The Fifth Generation Computer Systems project (FGCS) was an initiative by Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industy begun in 1982, to create a "fifth generation computer" (see history of computing hardware) which was supposed to perform much calculation utilizing massive parallelism. It was to be the end result of a massive government/industry research project in Japanduring the 1980s. It aimed to create an "epoch-making computer" with supercomputer-like performance and usable artificial intelligence capabilities.
The term fifth generation was intended to convey the system as being a leap beyond existing machines. Computers using vacuum tubs were called the first generation; transistors and diodes the second; ICs, the third; and those using microprocessors, the fourth. Whereas previous computer generations had focused on increasing the number of logic elements in a single CPU, the fifth generation, it was widely believed at the time, would instead turn to massive numbers of CPUs for added performance.
Opinions about its outcome are divided: Either it was a complete disaster, or it was ahead of its